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The Indo-European languages that I know (Dutch, English, German, French, Spanish) all make a distinction between "too" (meaning "to a higher degree than is desirable, acceptable or allowed") and "very"(it is "used for emphasis").

However, I have noticed that at least two of my Chinese language partners did not make this distinction when speaking German. For example, while looking at the price of a book on a website, one said, "Oh, too expensive." On another occasion, another said, "I'm too tired", but upon further questioning, it turned out that she meant "very tired".

When I asked one of my language partners explicitly what the difference was between "zu" (German for "too") and "sehr" (German for "very"), he answered without a shred of hesitation that they meant the same thing. (The origin of this confusion - from a Western point of view - appears to be that 太 tài can be used to mean either.)

I have tried to explain the difference in German with some example sentences, but since the problem is not specific to German, I would like to know how others have tried to explain the difference (in German, English, French, Spanish, etc.).

Anthony Pham
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Tsundoku
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  • Good question, but I wonder if it's a better fit for ELL. I have the same problem explaining these concepts to Spanish-language speakers, where the normal translation of 'too' is 'demasiado' which just means 'to a great degree', not necissarily 'more than desirable'. – Flimzy Aug 03 '16 at 17:51
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    Possible duplicate: http://ell.stackexchange.com/q/19898/69 – Flimzy Aug 03 '16 at 17:52
  • @Flimzy Thanks for the pointer to the ELL SE. However, as you have noticed, my question is not specific to English. – Tsundoku Aug 03 '16 at 18:05
  • Same in Modern Greek. Usually they will say 'πάρα πολύ' which simply means 'very much'. I always thought that Greeks just don't have the concept of 'too much' :-D Anyway, if you really want to put a strong emphasis on 'too much' you could use 'τρέχεις υπερβολικά γρήγορα' which translates to 'you are going excessively fast'. Or just be a real Greek and simply say 'Τι τρέχεις σαν τρελός; Μαλάκα, θα μας πας στο γκρεμό!' (something like: 'Why are you racing like a lunatic? You're going to take us down the cliff, you BEEEEEEEEP!) – J.Past Aug 03 '16 at 19:53
  • As a Chinese speaker, I use "tài" for "too" and "hò" (sorry, I only know the Cantonese pronunciation of that word) for "very". On another thought, the word in Mandarin might be "hao", but I am not sure. – SMS von der Tann Aug 03 '16 at 22:57
  • @SMSvonderTann Thanks. When I started learning (Standard) Chinese, I was told that "very" is 很 hěn and that "too" is 太 tài. This made perfect sense, until we learnt that, e.g., 太贵了 could mean "really very expensive" instead of "too expensive". When your native language is Dutch, English or German, this may confuse you at first. It was only when I started working with Chinese language partners that I found out that the distinction between "too" and "very" was not always clear to native speakers of Standard Chinese. – Tsundoku Aug 04 '16 at 08:30
  • I don't know any Chinese at all, and since I'm groping in the dark I didn't think I should write up a proper 'answer'. What I was trying to say in my comment above was that I assume that the Chinese do have the mental concept of 'too much' (it's just too much part of general human experience to not have it - i.e. someone speaking not just 'very loud', but 'too loud' etc.), but maybe they have a completely different way of expressing it (my 'you lunatic/cliff' example). – J.Past Aug 04 '16 at 12:25
  • And if so, because of a lack of a word like 'too', maybe they are less consciously aware of that concept than people whose native language has such an expression? However that may be, have you tried 'excessively' as an example (I'm assuming a word like that exists in Chinese)? E.g. English 'he is going too fast' (approximately) translates to Chinese 'he is going excessively fast'. – J.Past Aug 04 '16 at 12:26
  • @J.Past I'll present that example to my language partner when he comes back from China. – Tsundoku Aug 04 '16 at 12:39
  • Just popped in (and created an account) to say that this is a common misuse, of "too", at least (along with many, many other misuses), among Indian speakers of English. They also say things like - "this is too good". Which of course means very good. In standard English one does not often hear "too good". – Faheem Mitha Mar 16 '19 at 08:56

3 Answers3

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Sometimes an image speaks to people. Maybe try something like this.

Try this...

Daniel Schenker
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    What happened to the guy? Too much of lack of oxygen or something? Words and pictures work as well – Anthony Pham Aug 06 '16 at 13:57
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    Too much lack of oxygen. Too much water. Maybe too much alcohol. People have died in fermenting vats. – J.Past Aug 06 '16 at 18:42
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    Note that while "too much" can only be used to describe the right-hand picture, "very much" actually works for both. – michau Oct 07 '16 at 22:54
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I have explained this to one Chinese friend, but I have explained it often to myself as i try to master the usage of 太 in Chinese.

The basic difference in English is just that "very" does not say whether the amount is good or bad or just right, while "too" says the amount is bad and less would be better.

But nuance comes into it. If I say "the soup is very salty" people will usually understand me to mean salty soup is not good, the same as if I had said "the soup is too salty."

If I say "you are being too nice to me!" people will usually understand me to mean being nice always good and I could as well have said you are very nice to me.

The nuanced expressions get some of their force from the fact that they go against the basic meaning of the words.

But the basic difference remains: unless there is some clear implication from the context, "very" does not say whether the amount is good or bad, and "too" does say it is bad.

If I say some clam chowder is "very clammy tasting" people are likely to ask me "Well, is that good or bad?" If I say it is bad they will think I could as well have said it is "too clammy." If I say it is good they will think, right, I am saying it is very good.

If I say "you are too nice to me, you should stop" then again people will ask me to explain: is there something wrong with being nice?

Colin McLarty
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I have learned "too" as 太 (tai) and "very" as 很 (hen). But if 太 can be used as both, I would suggest explaining the difference as the difference between these answers when someone is asking you if you are up for doing something:

"I'm very tired" and "I'm too tired" is the same difference as between saying "我是太累了" and "不，我是太累了".

The difference is in the inherent "no" or "too much" when saying "too" instead of "very".

Hatchet
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Nemi Pelgrom
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